 Teach, nurture, encourage, love. That all comes later. Right now, they're mainly focused on killing. 
Yes, there are two movies called The Muthers. We covered the one from 1968 yesterday. Today we turn our attention to the unrelated blaxploitation flick, which premiered this month in 1976. Yesterday's Muthers was a simple nudie romp, rather innocent. Here eight years later we have a full blown savage adventure epic about a clan of female pirates who get themselves deliberately thrown in a coffee plantation/prison camp called Sal Si Puedes—Get Out If You Can—as part of a rescue mission. So what you basically have here is a women-in-prison movie, replete with sweat, cruelty, and a desperate plan to make a break for freedom.
Two of the pirates are portrayed by Playboy centerfolds Jeannie Bell and Rosanne Katon, while model Jayne Kennedy is a sort of privileged prisoner. Without getting too pervy about it, these are three of the more beautiful women from ’70s b-cinema. Another pirate is played by Trina Parks, who while she isn't otherworldly like the goddesses previously mentioned, is certainly plenty hot by any normal measure. We bring up their physical characteristics because it's exactly why director/writer/producer Cirio Santiago cast them. He was an exploitation producer/director nonpareil, and his milieu was putting beautiful women—among them Pam Grier, Judith Brown, Roberta Collins, Margaret Markov, and Colleen Camp—in roles where they drove the action.
The Muthers takes place in what is supposed to be Central America, but it was really produced in the good old Philippines by Santiago and the same people who gave the world movies like She Devils in Chains and Savage! The women Santiago has assembled here karate kick, rabbit punch, and machine gun a series of anonymous bad guys, finally working their way up the prison camp's commandant, played by Tony Carreon. Who comes out on top? You never know in these jungle epics, but you can count on the end being pyrotechnic. Do we recommend this? Well... in terms of sheer quality maybe not, but in terms of watching Bell, Katon, and Kennedy? For sure. Those girls are poison!
 They don't have much in the way of maternal instinct but they make up for it with eagerness to please. 
In the nudie flick The Muthers, which opened this month in 1968, two groups of people located somewhere in Southern California between No Budget and No Inhibitions spend an inordinate amount of time putting the ’60s ethos of free love to the test. You have the teens, who party and get laid, and the mothers, who do the same, but with more skill. The movie is just a lighthearted little softcore romp, quaint by today's standards, but notable for the fun attitude it brings to the proceedings. The plot, such as it is, eventually coalesces around one teen's feelings of neglect and tendency toward self-destruction, and the title derives from the fact that for some reason she can't spell “mother” properly.
But don't let our suggestion that there's a plot scare you—this flick is just one long sex scene after another. None of it is explicit, or even frontal for that matter. Mainly the performers just grind and wiggle. But it's still pretty stimulating because one of the moms is Virginia Gordon. For those unfamiliar, Gordon was an in-demand nude model, who, like a fine reposado tequila, just got more golden and more potent as time went by. She's in her thirty-second year in this film, and her body makes every other performer, including those twelve years younger than her, look like walking cookie dough. Safe to say your muther—or mother, even—never looked like that.   I know—you can't take your eyes off them, can you?
   Grinding is how I keep my muscle tone. Three-hundred fifty reps to go.
 Katon makes a charitable contribution to the world. 
Well, as we often do when returning from an intermission we're sharing something a bit more eye-catching than usual. Rosanne Katon, who you see above, appeared in such films as the 1976 blaxploitation flick The Muthers, in which she starred with fellow centerfold Jean Bell, the 1980 horror classic Motel Hell, and the black actioner Ebony, Ivory & Jade, discussed here. She was already established in film and television when she decided to appear in Playboy magazine in September 1978. It's hard to say if it helped her film career. Her roles came with neither greater nor lesser frequency than before. She continued to act into the early 1990s, then segued into the humanitarian sector. Which is apropos, because this extraordinary photo shows her ample generosity. It was shot during her 1970s Playboy sessions but wasn't published until 1996.
 Survival of the very fittest. 
Above is a photo of American actress Jayne Kennedy from her hilarious television movie Mysterious Island of Beautiful Women. The shot doesn’t begin to do her justice yet she still looks great in it. Kennedy started in beauty pageants before sliding into television roles and blaxploitation flicks such as The Muthers and Big Time, before veering into sports broadcasting in 1978 with The NFL Today. In pageants she was one of the first black women to blaze a trail, winning Miss Ohio in 1970 and making the semis at Miss U.S.A. the same year. In sportscasting she was one of the first women, black or white, to earn a prominent on-camera role, making her a dual trailblazer. Somewhere in there a sex tape leaked to the public, and since it was also one of the first, she can be said to have blazed a trail there too. Both of these shots are from 1979.
 A million dollar profile. 
We were going to upload a Facebook profile for Pulp Intl. today, but then we decided you’d probably rather look at this profile instead. Pictured is Virginia Gordon, who started in 1958 as a nude model, and later appeared in b-films such as The Muthers (the 1968 sexploitation flick, not the 1976 blaxploitation flick), Hot Spur, and Francis Ford Coppola’s nudie western Tonight for Sure. Her movies were mostly forgettable, but her modeling remains precisely the opposite. Bonus shot below from the same session. Probably 1962 on these.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1997—Heaven's Gate Cult Members Found Dead
In San Diego, thirty-nine members of a cult called Heaven's Gate are found dead after committing suicide in the belief that a UFO hidden in tail of the Hale-Bopp comet was a signal that it was time to leave Earth for a higher plane of existence. The cult members killed themselves by ingesting pudding and applesauce laced with poison. 1957—Ginsberg Poem Seized by Customs
On the basis of alleged obscenity, United States Customs officials seize 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" that had been shipped from a London printer. The poem contained mention of illegal drugs and explicitly referred to sexual practices. A subsequent obscenity trial was brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran City Lights Bookstore, the poem's domestic publisher. Nine literary experts testified on the poem's behalf, and Ferlinghetti won the case when a judge decided that the poem was of redeeming social importance. 1975—King Faisal Is Assassinated
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia dies after his nephew Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed shoots him during a royal audience. As King Faisal bent forward to kiss his nephew the Prince pulled out a pistol and shot him under the chin and through the ear. King Faisal died in the hospital after surgery. The prince is later beheaded in the public square in Riyadh. 1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping
Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice.
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